[Battletech] Retrospective and Prospective (Semi-Open)

[Asemir]

OOC:

I feel like writing Battletech, so I'm posting this. It's set in the Invasion era, maybe. Not sure yet. We shall see. I'll post whenever. If you wish to join, feel free, but it may help to post an OOC inquiry first to see how best to fit in.

This is Battletech/Mechwarrior, by the way. Not Star Wars, definitely not canon.

OOC thread here: Link

IC:

When he was but a child, Sotan Araki had asked his father how a rice cooker worked. His father, looking up from the reports littering his desk, had given his son a tired sigh and explained patiently that a rice cooker combines heat and pressure to quickly cook the rice held within. The device raises the water's boiling temperature by increasing the atmospheric pressure, thus decreasing cooking time. It had been a fascinating concept to the young Sotan, and he had thanked his father.

That had been years ago. Over two decades ago. So many events had transpired since then. Elementary school. High School. The Sun Zhang Mechwarrior Academy. It was a memory that the now-Chu-i had long forgotten, but it now reemerged to the forefront of his mind. Why now, Sotan Araki was not sure, but perhaps it was his present situation.

He was now the rice and the BattleMech cockpit was the rice cooker.

Chu-i Sotan Araki pulled at the sluggish controls, gasping for air as the heat flooding from the deck plates of the cockpit threatened to roast him. The massive assault 'Mech struggled to respond, as the heat from the cracked fusion engine shield turned the normally nimble Cyclops into a much more ponderous machine. But even as he labored to drag the 'Mech behind the relative safety of a crumbling warehouse, Sotan knew that the blistering temperatures were the least of his problems. The heat he could deal with. His missile ammunition was exhausted, so there was no chance for an errant cook-off to end his life. A brief pause in the fighting would allow his double-strength freezers to bring the temperatures down, if just slightly. But the bigger issue was the pressure, the pressure that rested on his shoulders and lay slumped over the primary controls of the dual-cockpit Cyclops.

Sho-sa Tanosuke Araki.

His father.

Blood was splattered against the shattered ferro-glass shield. Sotan couldn't see any of his father's injuries, but the limp form and the life sign monitors and the ringing in his ears told him the full story. The sho-sa's decades of glorious service to the Dragon was at an end. An alien raider's autocannon had seen to that. The ballistic weapon had spat a storm of razored metal, and some of the angry flechettes had penetrated the cockpit armor to find their way into the soft flesh of the Combine officer.

There was no time to grieve. The cockpit temperatures had seen that no tears would seep from Sotan's eyes. Plus, his father would have disapproved. His father was samurai and he was samurai. He had a duty to the Dragon, to his unit, to his family. It was his duty to carry on, even as his father and commanding officer fell.

Seeing that the heat indicator was now in the yellow range instead of the red range, Sotan pushed the throttle forward. Honor, the name his father had given the family's modified Cyclops, lumbered out from behind the warehouse and spun on its right foot. The Chu-i had already centered the crosshairs on where he guessed the raider might be, and when the his HUD glowed gold, he squeezed the triggers.

The dual extended-ranged PPCs, mounted in place of the Cyclops's usual assault autocannon, discharged their man-made lightning down range. Sotan gasped as a new blast of heat seared the air from his lungs but he kept his crosshairs on-target and added a salvo from his arm-mounted medium lasers.

The combined energy assault blasted into the raider 'Mech's chest. The huge machine, something Honor's battle computer tagged as a Gladiator, staggered and took a step back to steady itself. Thick black smoke poured from the impact craters, and the enemy 'Mech glowed brightly under Sotan's infrared display.

The radio crackled to life and a foreign voice sounded in Sotan's ears. "Good shooting, Sho-sa. You have cracked my engine's shielding. You impress me. But it will not be enough."

Sotan winced as the Gladiator's return fire stripped all of the remaining armor from Honor's chest. It was all he could do to keep the Cyclops on its feet and twist it back behind the cover of the warehouse.

"Your 'Mech is dying, Sho-sa," the raider taunted. "You have fought hard and I would be honored to take you as bondsman. Why do you keep fighting?"

Running an experienced eye over his computer monitors, Sotan ground out a response. "I fight because of duty. Because of honor." The news was bad. Honor was dying around him. Its chest was completely bare of armor. Its engine shielding was just about gone and one of its PPCs had been destroyed under the Gladiator's barrage. He was lucky the cannon's capacitors hadn't discharged into the bowels of his 'Mech.

The raider's response came after a pause. "You are not Sho-sa Tanosuke Araki, yet you pilot his Cyclops. Who are you?"

"I am Chu-i Sotan Araki. Sho-sa Aruki was my father." His eyes settled on a secondary display, the one showing the readouts from the Tacticon B-2000's seismic sensor. "You have slain him, but I will redeem his honor. I will defeat you, raider, and drive you from this world."

"I see." Another pause. "Very well, Chu-i Sotan Araki. I, Star Commander Axunari of Clan Ghost Bear, extend my honorable duel with Sho-sa Tanosuke Araki to you. Let none interfere with our battle!"

Sotan didn't reply. He didn't care what the raider said. Instead, he continued to watch the seismic sensor even as the tremors from the Gladiator's thundering footfalls told him what he needed to know. He counted to ten and then throttled forward.

The fearsome skull-mask of the Ghost Bear Gladiator filled his view as Sotan spun Honor from behind the warehouse. He had no time to think or to register the flash of Star Commander Axunari's assault autocannon. All he had time for was to finger the triggers to his remaining ER-PPC and medium lasers.

And to ball the Cyclops's massive right battle fist and send it slamming into the gigantic target that was the Gladiator's hideous face.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

There were some who fought for honor, and some who fought for sport. Other's fought because they were forced to fight, and some were bred to do so. He was, in many ways, a combination of all. A battered Commando had stood sentinel over the family homestead deep in the Periphery, the only functioning weapon the care-worn medium laser settled in the torso.

It had gone out to walk the perimeter of their many acre farm when the pirates had come calling, though their out of the way slice of an out of the way planet was rarely, if ever, contested. This had afforded him a rare luxury, however - the ability to train in a mech from a young age.

It's what had brought him to the life of a mercenary, and it's what had brought him to Alshain; amusing to think the Combine used mercenaries. Infamous for the poor treatment recieved by their employers, few openly fought for them. But here were the Lone Wolves, a single lance of light mechs running in defense of the district capital with the Alshain Regulars and a Sword of Light.

He still didn't understand who these 'Ghost Bears' were or what they wanted, but that was for bigger minds than him to decide. Stalking a ruined cityscape with the twisted metal wrecks of destroyed tanks and the disturbingly human corpses of dead mechs, he eased his Grasshopper into an intersection in careful fashion.

Having sparred with a Mad Cat, three of his five medium lasers were out of commission, and he was fairly certain he was leaking coolant. His damage readout said he was screwed and he believed it, and somewhere in the distance he heard the thundercrack of discharging PPCs and the characteristic whine of lasers emptying their capacitors. Feathering the jumpjets, he rose shakily into the air and came down atop a nearby building.

There were some who fought for honor, and some who fought for sport.

Wess?

Well, Wess fought for C-Bills, and that's what he saw as he feathered the jump jets again and saw a Cyclops squaring off against a rectangular mech near a warehouse. Cyclops were a command mech, and he could likely get a hefty bonus for saving that pilot. Landing at an intersection, his fusion reactor began to hum as he pushed the throttle to maximum. Splayed feet digging up chunks of ferrocrete as he ran, he feathered the jets again and a wave of heat rolled across his body.

The coolant vest attached to his torso began to work, slugs of coolant writhing across his torso to pull away waste heat and keep him conscious, and he came down in time to turn towards the charging Cyclops who was barreling for the Gladiator. His comm gear was down, but he knew what he had to do. Toggling his TIC to his PPC, he cracks manmade lightning towards the raider assault mech's back and then pumped the two medium lasers he had left for good measure.

Finding himself in a sauna, he didn't wait to watch the damage he inflicted, and then feathered his jump jets again to peel away and over the top of a nearby building. Cat and mouse.

[member="Asemir Lor'kora"]

 

[Asemir]

Fight time. It was a concept quite familiar to those who made their living dealing with violence. Combat. Action. Reflexes. It slowed perception so that everything seemed to be chugging along in a tri-vid set to slow motion. Frame by frame. It was something that Star Commander Axunari was very, very intimate with.

His assault autocannon barked a throaty laugh as it blasted a storm of razored metal towards the Cyclops. His cockpit lit up like a strobe as his large pulse lasers discharged into the Spheriod's 'Mech. His cabin temperature spiked as his OmniMech's heat sinks struggled to shunt away the excess waste heat. The glare of megajoules of energy washing over his forward ferroglass shield. The screaming of proximity alarms as his sensors detected a threat in his rear arc.

The massive, multi-ton fist rocketing towards his face.

Even as that hand actuator jerked its way frame by frame towards his cockpit, and even as his brain registered the danger and reached the conclusion that he was dead, Axunari's body was reacting, moving from sheer muscle memory. He threw himself to his right, transferring his own sense of balance into a command that desynced his Executioner's gyros. His hands twisted on the throttle and his feet smashed down on the foot pedals.

It was desperate, but what he needed now was desperation. Or else he would be nothing more than a smear of red against the Cyclops' battle fist. There would be barely enough for the technicians to gather a giftake.

The Executioner, reacting to its pilot's commands, stumble-tripped-lurched to the side. It was an awkward movement, especially for ninety-five tons of lumbering metal, and something only possible through the direct neuro-connection afforded by a neurohelmet.

Armor and ferroglass exploded outward in a shower of shrapnel as the Cyclops' fist clipped the side of the Executioner's head.

Axunari blinked once, finding himself staring up into the sky. He winced, shook his head to try to clear it of the ringing, and a quick flex of both hands told him that at least his arms worked. He found the throttle, the controls and started to work the Executioner. Miraculously, the machine responded, and with a groan of tortured and abused metal, rolled itself from the ground and to its feet.

Fighting past the nausea and pain and aching and blood and sweat clouding his vision, the Clan warrior ran a practiced eye over his secondary readouts. The fall had jammed his autocannon. He had no armor left on the front or back of his machine. Evidently something had stripped his rear completely bare. His engine shielding was breached. His cockpit was laid open to the winter wind.

Axunari spat tooth chips and turned his 'Mech around to stare at the broken remains of the Cyclops he had been dueling. His last salvo had cored it, and it lay shattered at his feet. The singular pane of ferroglass that made up the "eye" was shattered and smoke rose from it.

A wail from his sensors interrupted any thought of honoring his foe's memory. A red carat was moving north. The Ghost Bear triggered his radio. "Charlie Nova Actual reporting Cyclops down. I have taken significant damage, but I am pursuit of a fleeing Grasshopper. He is mine."

Axunari switched to the general frequencies as he set his Executioner on a lumbering walk (really a limp) and prayed that his machine would hold together. "Inner Sphere pilot of the Grasshopper," he broadcast, "I forgive you your transgression of interrupting my duel with Chu-i Araki. I, Star Commander Axunari of Charlie Nova, offer you the chance to redeem your honor. Come face me like a true Warrior."

[member="Sarge Potteiger"]

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Coming down with a thud on the other side of the building, he spun the inverted triangle of his torso east then west, eyeing the black sludge of melted snow that showed the characteristic signs of a Mech battleground. Alshain was a military graveyard, and the winter's white deposits sported their own unenviable scars. His mech was steaming, the cracked plate-glass of his cockpit let in a gust of cool air that was disturbed only by the excess heat still swamping his cockpit.

Depressing the pedals, he guided the mech towards the west, wondering how that Cyclops had fared. He'd check his sensors, but they weren't exactly functional at the moment. Moving down to the first intersection, he cut back towards the warehouse and launched himself into the air on streams of plasma again. Carrying himself to the top of a nearby building, he scanned about, looking for the Gladiator.

All that the Star Commander would get back was silence, and if he could lay eyes on the orange painted mech, he'd realize why - it's communications gear was gone. A black starburst was set just above the breast of the machine, the remnant of a too-close PPC blast to the cockpit. Just about everything was fried, but stubbornly, the mech refused to give in; or perhaps it was just the pilot.

The scrapmetal torso scanned back and forth, the smoking scrapheap of Cyclops telling him the Combine warrior was dead.

"Where are you, raider scum..." he mutters under his breath, the coolant drooling from his reactor turning to steam literally the moment it came in contact with the metal. It was likely a furnace inside, and it wouldn't take much to force a shut down.

That mech was somewhere, and he didn't know where, but he finally spotted the trail that showed him where he'd chased after him. Feathering the jets to drop him to a land near the Combine warrior's grave, he plodded forward slowly, the snub-barrel of his PPC aimed at the corner around which his opponent had presumably gone.

[member="Asemir Lor'kora"]

 

[Asemir]

The sensor feed showing Axunari the movement of the red carat flickered in and out, and so it was with mild surprise that he saw its new position. It had used its superior movement profile to circle west and then jump over some of the warehouses of the industrial park to come around into his rear echelons.

The Mechwarrior frowned as he worked the foot pedals and turned his Executioner around. The Grasshopper was known as a brawler. Its brace of medium lasers gave it horrendous short range punch. His 'Mech wasn't in any condition for a melee. It would be brutal.

The Ghost Bear throttled backwards, pushing his 'Mech into a slow reverse. It would give him some range, hopefully keep him out of range of the Spheroid's lasers. Maybe. Given the speed at which the carat was moving, he doubted he'd have enough time pull past four hundred meters.

Axunari watched the sensor feed carefully, judging relative speeds. His finger hovered over the trigger, but at the last moment, the flickering readout vanished completely. "Freebirth!" The curse escaped his mouth, and he shoved his anger away. There would be time after the battle. He had to focus here.

As soon as he caught movement at the street corner, he triggered his pulse lasers, hoping to get the first shot before the Inner Sphere pilot could fire his own salvo.

[member="Sarge Potteiger"]

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

The scarred orange of the mercenary mech appeared around the corner - but only for a moment. The hand actuator gripped the hand of the building, and he pulled back on the stick as the pulse lasers screamed through the space he'd been about to occupy. Grunting, he used the handhold of the building's corner to swing around and bring the snub nose of his chest-mounted PPC to bear.

Up close, the Bear could see the mess that was his opponent.

Jagged furrows were rent in the triangular torso, exposing reactor and coolant to the winters air. Despite the low temperature, the mech was visibly steaming, running on near-overload levels of heat. The mechwarrior inside was in desperate need of hydration, but the battle was ongoing and there was no escaping the city just yet. Eyeballing the shot through a cracked cockpit, he snapped off the shot from the PPC before smacking the 'override shutdown' button.

Alarms wailed in his ears, warning him of shut down, and he immediately set the mech charging forward. The Assault mech was just as weak as he was, but he knew he was in a dying mechanical steed. Waiting a moment for some heat to dissipate, he triggers his two remaining medium lasers. The remaining trio was clearly too damaged to be of use, and as he closed the gap with the other machine, the PPC completed its recharge cycle.

Likely picked apart by his opponent by this point, he hit the PPC and pulled the yellow-black striped ejection handle. The scalp of the cockpit peeled back and he rocketed into the air on pillars of flame. He'd judged the mech would go critical by this point, but he couldn't be sure.

Hitting the winter air in his shorts and coolant vest felt like a sledgehammer to the chest, and he fought the darkness encroaching his vision to stare down at the titans below.

[member="Asemir Lor'kora"]

 

[Asemir]

The stream of ionized neutrinos punched the Executioner in the gut and Axunari reacted as if he had been personally slugged. Warning klaxons sounded, louder than the ones already blaring, and damage indicators let up across his console. The particle cannon had slashed through the structural supports and ripped into the machine's massive gyro. His machine rocked forward involuntarily, folding along its articulated waist, and that was perhaps the best action for it. The shift in gravity, the momentum, kept the Executioner on its feet even as the abused gyro screamed in protest.

As Axunari reached out in reflex with his 'Mech's arm to steady itself against a building, he saw his foe rocketing into the air. The Grasshopper collapsed on itself, its structural integrity completely compromised from the damage caused by his pulse lasers. The Clanner straightened his machine, gently, and searched for his opponent's landing zone. The harsh winter winds were not a proper welcome for a Mechwarrior dressed in cooling vest and shorts.

He glanced at a secondary monitor, studying the map showing the relative positions of his unit. "Point Commander Seth. Do you have anyone in Sector Four Charlie?"

It took a moment before the bass voice of his Elemental commander sounded in his ear. "Aff, Star Commander. "

"Send someone to find an Inner Sphere Mechwarrior who just punched out. I am taking him bondsman."

"Roger, Star Commander. I will notify you when he is secured."

"Thank you, Seth." Axunari let out a sigh and turned his machine towards the front. A paused as he studied his own status, and then he let out a growl of frustration. A heavily damaged gyro. Cracked engine shielding. No armor. Devoid of his primary weapon. At this point, a determined infantryman armed with a missile launcher could knock out his 'Mech. He changed his radio frequency.

"Star Captain, this is Charlie Actual. I am unable to join the final push. My 'Mech is held together by spit and gum. Do not hold the assault on account of me. I am giving Mechwarrior Jenna the honor of leading Charlie Nova for this action."

"Roger, Axunari," came Star Captain Paul Hamaovi's voice. "We are pushing the Second Sword off the field. The battle will be won momentarily. Do not die wastefully, Axunari."

"Understood, Star Captain." Axunari throttled his machine into a forward walk, very aware that any sudden movements could throw his gyro out of sync, causing it to tear itself apart against its damaged housing. He sighed. The battle would be over soon. And then he'd meet the Spheroid who had piloted that Grasshopper.

[member="Sarge Potteiger"]

Feel free to jump forward to being captured, if you'd like. Or afterwards. Or something. I'm not picky.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Embedded at an angle atop a mound of snow that had survived the war being waged across the Combine world, the nearly naked form of Wess was found by the Elemental. Emerald eyes flickered open only briefly when he was removed from his strapping, reaching for a service weapon that had been lost in the ejection. Thrown over the shoulder of the armored infantryman, Wess would awaken later with only sporadic flashbacks of hopping through deserted streets and climbing over wreckage.

He'd not been found before hypothermia had set in, however - or at least, that's what he imagined had happened.

Having awoken in a medbay attended by a rather ornery looking Combine doctor, he didn't say a word. He'd been stopped from removing a tricolored chord set about his wrist, and a raider warrior was stationed outside. At least, he imagined it was a raider warrior.

The freakishly large figure had an impressive limp and smashed face, Neanderthalic in appearance. No sounds of war filtered to his ear, but he was fairly certain he was on Alshain still. As for what was going on, he wasn't sure, but he didn't ask any questions. He remained stubbornly quiet as they made sure he was recovering suitably from whatever they'd done to him. Nagged by that stubborn beeping that accompanied all medical monitors, he threw his legs over the edge of the bed and took hold of his stupid medical pole.

Making his way to the window, he cast his gaze towards the city outside, a city just now seeing the scar tissue left behind by the healing of fresh battle. No one was in the room at this moment, it seemed, and he took that moment to rest his forehead against the glass, feeling every bit the prisoner he knew he was.

[member="Asemir Lor'kora"]